


Antonia Stark (Is Better Than You)

by petroltogo



Series: Not Your Fragile Statue [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Always a girl Tony, Angst, Bullying, Childhood, Drabble Series, Drabbles, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Genderbending, Growing Up, Howard Stark's C+ Parenting, MIT Era, Maria Stark's C+ Parenting, Racism, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Sexism, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Ty is a friend of sorts, pepper is amazing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2018-12-25 07:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12031497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: "Antonia is also brilliant, and that is a fault that can not be forgiven."Antonia Stark has learned many lessons during the course of her life. Not all of them her professors intended to teach her but she received them loud and clear all the same.





	1. Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> This is a drabble series, meaning all chapters are going to be short and inspired by a single word prompt. They will also NOT NECESSARILY be chronological.
> 
> Pairings and warnings will be added as needed as the story progresses.

Antonia Stark is six when a boy from the row behind her pulls on her pigtails. She doesn’t cry out even though it hurts.  _Starks are made of iron_ , her father always says, so she bites her lip and keeps quiet. 

She tells her teacher once the lesson is over instead, keeps her back straight and her eyes serious like she’s been taught to do.

Mrs Porter laughs. 

 _Oh, don’t you worry, dear_ , she says.  _When a boy pulls a girl’s hair it’s not because he’s trying to be mean. Often it’s how they show they care. They don’t know any better yet._

 _This is a school,_ Antonia points out.  _Shouldn’t you teach them?_

Mrs Porter stops laughing then.

*

Outside, during break time, Evan pulls her pigtails again, harder this time. The supervisor doesn’t even scold him.

*

The third time it happens, Antonia grabs a hold of Evan’s thick locks and yanks as hard as she can.

She’s sent to the principals’ office who peers down at her from behind his thick-rimmed glasses, and lectures her about violence _and how it is not an appropriate response, young lady_.

Antonia refuses to apologise.

*

Her father is angry. He is always angry, so it takes Antonia a while to realise that the principal must have called them, that the mumbling about  _wimpy girls_  is the only defence she will get.

Her mother is quiet but in the tense lines around her lips there is a  _You have an image to uphold, Antonia_  written for all the world to see. 

Antonia bites her lip until it her mother tells her to stop. Straightens in her seat and says  _Yes, Mother_  like it’s an accusation.

They don’t notice but then, they never do.

*

Later that night, Antonia takes the biggest scissors she can find and cuts her pigtails off.


	2. Discipline

_Quit slouching, Antonia. It’s unbecoming_.

 _Smile with your eyes, not your teeth_.  _Incline your head_.  _Do not speak up_.

 _Be quiet. Be demure. Be obedient_.

Her nursery maid, a staunch believer in rules and discipline, is not a cruel woman, not even an unkind one. Under her firm tutelage Antonia blossoms, watching and listening as the grown-ups coo and fawn over such a perfectly well-mannered, little lady.

Antonia smiles, close-lipped and with crinkles around the corners of her eyes.

 _Be pretty. Be sweet. Be kind_ , the maid preaches.

 _Pretty is soft and unthreatening. Sweet is hollow and agreeable. Kindness is pretending to care_ , Antonia learns.


	3. Mistake

****Antonia is smart. She knows this to be true, not because her teachers bore her, not because what other children struggle to understand for weeks she grasps in one lazy afternoon, but because she is not supposed to be smart.

Intelligent, yes, as is expected of the daughter of famous inventor Howard Stark. But she is not supposed to calculate like numbers are her native tongue, even though it feels like they are often enough. Isn't supposed to navigate complex concepts and metaphors like the streets of her home town. Isn't supposed to listen to adults' talk and _understand_.

She sees it in the frown on her teachers’ face. The twist of a physics’ student’s mouth when she corrects a mistake in his equation. Her father’s glare when she comments on a subject beyond her studies during dinner time.

Thus it is perhaps unsurprising that, when she makes a mistake in class one day, the response is mocking scoffs and laughter ( _silly girl, stupid girl_ ) instead of the calm corrections someone else might have received. When she doesn’t understand something, gleeful satisfaction takes the place of patient explanations.

( _Silly girl, stupid girl, of course you don’t understand_.)

Because although she wears dresses in soft hues of rose and blue, though she smiles with her eyes, not her teeth, though she is quiet and demure, Antonia is also brilliant, and that is a fault that can not be forgiven.


	4. Genius

_She’s a girl_ , they scoff in disbelief. Like that diminishes her worth. Like it dooms her quest for recognition from the start. (It does) Like that’s all they will ever need to know to judge and find lacking.

 _She’s a genius_ , they sneer in anger. Like that cheapens her accomplishments. Like she owes her victories to a cheat code everyone else had the good grace not to use. (Only worse) Like that’s all they will ever need to know to judge and find lacking.


	5. College

There are two letters of acceptance on her father’s desk.

One is from MIT. It promises a future in the world of numbers and ratios, coloured by the jeers and laughter and doubt that is sure to follow her every step.

One is from Oxford. It promises a time of adventures and new experiences in another country, its light clouded by ideals of properness she will never fully meet.

It’s college, and though it’s not the rest of her life it’s a defining step in who Antonia Stark is, who she will be, to the world as much as to herself.

Her father is watching her expectantly, eyes as dark as the whiskey in his glass.

 _The check needs to be sent tomorrow_ , he says.  _The decision is yours_ , he doesn’t say.

And Antonia is eleven, too young and too smart and still smiling with too much teeth. She is four, left alone in her room with no one to comfort her because  _Starks are made of iron_. She is thirteen and disqualified from her school’s competition because it wouldn’t be fair to the other children (to be shown up by a girl three years younger than they are). She is six and boys keep pulling and pulling and pulling her pigtails until she cuts them off.

She is fifteen and she chooses.


	6. Wednesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We’ve entered the second chapter of Antonia Stark’s life. She is fifteen, studying at MIT and meeting new people. People like Tiberius Stone.

MIT turns out to be everything Antonia hoped it would be and more. Her classes are engaging, to the point where she spends many a late evening in the library, reading up on details the professors mention, topics that capture her interest, extracurricular lectures that help her deepen her understanding of the subject matter.

It helps that most of her professors are more than willing to recommend her additional articles and point her towards books she may find helpful. Her fellow students too finally appear to speak the same language she does.

Antonia still finds herself jumping circles around them, grasping abstract concepts while others still attempt to discern what the question is, but now when she talks people understand her, even if they don’t always follow her thought process immediately. More than that, they argue and discuss and once they get over the initial shock of seeing her among them, most accept her fairly easily. Academically at least, she belongs.

Socially is a different matter, but her weekly study groups are so close to actual friendships, Antonia almost doesn’t notice the parties she isn’t invited to, the movie nights and dinners she isn’t asked to join.

She doesn’t take it personal.

She doesn’t.

Not even when it leaves her to spend yet another Wednesday afternoon in the library, on her acclaimed table.

Because she is studying to become an engineer, is learning so much, hasn’t had anyone rip her essay apart yet, and it’s brilliant. MIT is brilliant.

Granted there are some things she could do without but–

“And how is my favourite little Miss Stark doing this fine evening?” a smooth, dangerously smug voice pipes up from across the table.

Antonia blinks, definitely _not_ pleasantly surprised by her unannounced company.

“Is that my doughnut you’re eating?”

She doesn’t even know why she bothers asking. All it gets her is a self-satisfied smirk that really shouldn’t look as good as it does. And she doesn’t ask herself why it doesn’t annoy her as much as it should.

–Things like Tiberius Stone. She could definitely do without those.


	7. Smallest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You will be cast into a role sooner rather than later, either by your own hand or by others.”

“Victim or slut?”

“Excuse me?” Antonia asks incredulously.

The vaguely familiar, young man lounging confidently in the chair on the opposite end of  _her_ library table rolls his eyes in an exaggerated show of annoyance.

“You’re a girl,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’s gonna hold you back.”

“ _Excuse me_?” Antonia repeats, harsher this time. She is seriously tempted to knock her book over the smug bastard’s head. Multiple times.

“Easy,” the guy leans back, hands held out in front of him, palms up in a mockery of surrender. If it wasn’t for the vicious smirk on his lips, that is. “Don’t kill the messenger. Besides it’s not like I’m telling you anything you don’t already know." The way he stares at her doesn't speak of sexual innuendo but a shrewd sort of calculation Antonia instinctively recognises as much more dangerous. "So what’s the plan?” he asks, easy and bland. Like he couldn't care less.

Antonia narrows her eyes.

There’s something in the way this guy talks, the way he watches her, that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. It’s this unsettling sensation that finally causes her to recall the guy’s name: Tiberius Stone. He’s in two of her classes, and from what Antonia remembers, has not once agreed with her on any of the topics they discussed.

“What on earth are you talking about?” she asks despite herself.

Stone tilts his head, and even though an ever-present smile is still resting on his lips, his eyes are cold.

“You will be cast into a role sooner rather than later, either by your own hand or by others.”

“And you believe  _those_  are my only options? Besides what business of yours is it what I do or don’t do with my life?” Antonia makes no effort to keep the derision out of her voice.

At that Stone’s smile widens. “You’re interesting.”

Somehow, coming from him, it does not sound like a compliment.

“But even you are limited by people’s perceptions. You may be able to sell any role you want, but not everyone is gonna buy it. And then what use is a role when you’re too busy defending your choice to  _play_? So,” Stone drawls, “what’s it gonna be, little Miss Stark?” His words are dripping with a lecherous intent that has Antonia fighting to suppress the urge to lean away from him. “The victim or the slut?”

Later Antonia won’t be able to explain it, not even to herself, but in that moment meeting Tiberius Stone’s cool, assessing gaze is the hardest thing she has ever had to do. It leaves her feeling trapped and out of her depth and  _small_ , makes her want to curl up in a corner of the room, stay out of sight and pretend nothing can touch her.

But Antonia Stark has been the smallest child in the room all her life, has been the little girl that needs not burden herself with the ugly truths of life and is left to face them alone and defenceless all the same, and she does the only thing she knows to do, what she has been doing all her life: she straightens in her seat and she keeps her lips closed and she smiles.

“A warrior.”

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr: [tonystarktogo](http://tonystarktogo.tumblr.com/).


End file.
